Eduwatch by SRC: BP4_2009121_Webtool

Corporate training at my company is entirely classroom based. The training materials are created by the product center rather than by the trainers. The reasoning behind this policy is the “product creators” know the product better than anyone so who better to create the course materials. Although this makes sense on one level there are problems associated with this policy for instance the people who create the product naturally want to push the new features, rather than aligning the materials with the student goals and expectations. How can this product they be expected to align materials to student goals, they are not in the classroom, they are not teaching in fact they are disconnect. A potential solution is the integration of surveys and questionnaires.

A survey will capture the student’s expectations before the class begins so that the materials can be adjusted and the trainers will have the opportunity to manage the expectations of students before they are disappointed. The real time analysis tools and share options within survs is particularly useful as the survey creator, trainers, managers and product creators can analyze the results of the survey as results come in, allowing for real time customization.

(surs, 2009)

The filter tools also enhance the survey solution as they allow you to distill information, and see trends within the results. In other words changing the results from just plain data to information. Information can be used to make decisions about class content and course offering.

Second use of surveys is to capture the comments of students after the class. This allows product creators and trainers to further adjust the material and get general feed back about their classroom management skills and the content of their class. Again allowing trainers to continually update and improve their teaching techniques and materials. Surs’ export tool is useful, as the result from the survey can be used as the basis of creating monthly and quarterly reports that managers will view to asses, the companies course offering and how well the company has meet student expectations.

The third use of the surveys is to assess the comprehension of students during the course again this feed back.

Surs’ makes the creation and analysis of survey results easy. It is also deployed over web and can be stored in a digital format that protects the rights of the user. Although I support the concept behind the application, I am forced to ask if surs’ surveys can be deployed on a large scale. In other words is it an enterprise solution. In order to answer yes, surs surveys must be usable and customizable for use in other areas with in the company and solution must be scalable, i.e. can be used in very large organizations under heavy use. After using surs and taking a tour of the application, I will have to say yes this is an enterprise solution.

I could choose from various services packages, from the free option to the premium page.